My Two Truths and a Lie

I've been cooking these up for a while and thought it would be fun to share. As I've thought about random things that I've done throughout my life, I realized some of them sound pretty wild; realized they would be perfect for the game 2 Truths and a Lie.

1. I once owned a pet goldfish that lived for over 8 years.

2. I've worn the same tie almost every Sunday for over 4 years.

3. At one point in my life, I lived in a hotel for over 4 months.

Note (and this is a note I would probably give when actually playing the game as well): I think half-truths/lies are silly/non-fun (ex. If #1 my pet goldfish only lived 7 years, not 8. Or for #3 it was actually a motel, not a hotel etc.), and thus I only do full truths, complete fabrications, or extreme exaggerations.

The Record

I did this in the past for a while and thought it was hilarious, and I've been wanting to do it again. Frankly, not sure why I ever stopped. Just had the idea to turn it into an ongoing/updating blog post.

This is "The Record". Any time I hear someone say, "For The Record...", I will do my best to make sure that it gets recorded in its proper place. Here. In The Record.

Note: The date shown is when I heard them request it being on the record, not when they originally asked for it to be on the record.

The Record

"For the record, I don't think I use the phrase, 'for the record' very often." ~Tyler B.

(Tyler right after learning about The Record) 

3/18/24

"For the record, I cannot consent to this." ~ Joseph G. 

(Joseph after Tyler requested that he constantly use the phrase "for the record" from now on)

3/18/24

"I pressed grab, let the record show." ~ Cory T.

(Cory after being grabbed by Chuck in Street Fighter 6)

3/30/24

"For the record, I think it's more fancy." ~ Me

(Me after my team made a guess on if a Yogurt Parfait is more or less fancy than what the other team said in a game of Wavelength)

4/7/24

"Just for the record, there is no mafia." ~ Drew Carey

(In Whose Line Is It Anyway. I was watching this.)

4/9/24

"Theo will be ripping those, let the record show." ~ Cory T.

(When commentating my SSBU set after I tried to do back throw into flair blitz as Charizard seen here. (Side note: The fact that I won that game is hilarious.))

4/21/24

"For the record, I don't think you should be doing that." ~ Beth P.

(Teasing me about this blog post -- can't tell if she's being serious regardless of the fact that she said she was teasing.)

4/21/24

Abstract Applications of Scriptures are ¿Interesting?

I think it's ¿interesting? (not quite sure the right word) when people use scriptures to almost justify their actions, but the two things aren't actually related and you could easily use other scriptures to justify the other course of action. 

I think the prime example I find is in course syllabuses. Pretty much direct quote I've seen a couple times: "Just like how we'll all be accountable for our own sins, you will be tested individually." I find this kind of silly, using the scriptures in a way to make it seem like your course is structured as God would structure it. Because you could easily pull out a different random thing from the scriptures to make your syllabus say the opposite. "Just like the Good Samaritan helped the man on the side of the road, we too must always help each other; therefore, tests will be in groups."

Just something I find interesting that I think it's probably wise to be careful of. Justifying our actions with scriptures in some abstract way that could easily be countered by the use of other scriptures used in some abstract way, if that makes sense.

Idk, obviously you want to apply principles from the scriptures to your life, and I'm not trying to say to not do that. I just think certain times people do it in not the best ways, I guess? Maybe part of it is when it affects people vs simply applying it to yourself? I'm not quite sure what exactly about it is okay/not okay. Regardless I hope what I'm trying to say is getting across.

Lorcana Tournaments

I've been playing a lot of Lorcana recently. Lorcana is the Disney Trading Card Game.

As I referenced at some point, I've been going to weekly Lorcana tournaments for the past few weeks now. I've been to 3 constructed deck tournaments and 1 draft.

Tournament Structure:

They're hosted by our local gamestore. Entry is $10 and the prize support is 2 packs per player. Everybody gets a guaranteed 1 pack and then the rest of the packs are distributed amongst the top 3ish (depending on how many people show up). They are run using Swiss with 3 rounds.

Rundown of Each Tournament I've Been To:

Week 1:

First week we (my two roommates (Joe and Tyler) and I) all lost to Austin, who instantly became our rival. I don't remember exactly what happened outside of that, but I ended up taking 2nd winning 3 packs, I believe. I was piloting Tyler's discard deck (that link takes you to the decklist. In this case, it's not the exact deck I ran, but pretty close. The other decklist links are pretty spot on to what I ran, I'm pretty sure).

Week 2:

Second week we all brought different decks. I was piloting an Evasive Donald Duck Ruby/Steel deck. I ended up winning! Beating Austin in the process, which I was very happy about. I won 4 packs, I think.

Week 3 (Draft):

The 3rd week was a special event for the release of Set 3. We did a draft, and it was seriously such a freaking blast. Each person gets four packs. Open a pack, pick a card, pass the pack, pick a card etc. until that pack is gone. Open up another pack, so on and so forth. 

You get to keep all the cards you drafted. And then they did prize support on top of that, which was insanely awesome. 12 people showed up for the draft, which was so cool (attendance the other two weeks was 5 and 8). I won and I'm super happy about that! My roommate Joe got 2nd, which was awesome. Ended up winning 5 packs on top of the 4 that I drafted. (Entry fee was $25 for this event)

Week 4:

The 4th week was the first week of Set 3 constructed deck. I brought an alright Amber/Steel Bodyguard deck that I had been ironing out throughout the week. Ended up winning! Only 5 people were in attendance, which was sad; we were definitely hoping for more after all the new people came to the draft the week before. Won 4 packs.

Week 5:

2nd week of Set 3 constructed. Great turnout with 7. Had a lot of fun with this Emerald/Amethyst Tempo Deck. Won my first two rounds and my third round was against Tyler. Every game was super close. I barely won game one, 20 to 19 lore. Game 2 was close, but he won. Game 3 I had an awful start, but he made a couple critical misplays, which I was able to capitalize on just enough to win the tournament. I won 4 packs, one of them included a $37 card which was super hype.

Selling Cards:

I've also just started up this week selling cards on a TCGplayer account. I've spent a good chunk of money on Lorcana, and I'm hoping to make some of it back. I'll plan to eventually sell all my cards, but for now I'm just selling my most expensive ones. I've also been "hired" on by Joe to sell many of his most expensive cards ("hired": he gave me $10 worth of cards and I get to keep his profits from shipping (aka, like 20 cents every shipment)). 

It's been a lot of fun so far! We've sold to 15 different people already for a total of (after fees) $273. Definitely planning on keeping this little side hustle going on for a while.

The Kind Of Funny Tragicness of Shiny Hunting

So my roommate (Joe) has a Game Boy Advance and a copy of Pokemon LeafGreen. I'm not sure exactly what his end goal is, but he is hunting for shiny pokemon (I believe his brother who lives elsewhere is too, I think). I have been helping him on this quest. If I'm listening to a book or watching a show or something, you can often find me pressing the A button repeatedly hoping a blue Snorlax appears.

For this pokemon/situation, it's set up in such a way that you can just turn on the game and press A a bunch until a Snorlax appears. When you're never lucky and Snorlax is not blue, you press A+B+Start+Select at the same time and it resets the game; you proceed to press the A button a bunch of times, and so on and so forth.

Trouble is, of course, there's only a 1/8192 chance to encounter shiny. An abysmal .01221% chance.

Bigger trouble is, of course, how statistics works. We are just as close now to catching shiny blue Snorlax as we were when we started this endeavor. Even though we've pressed that A button for hours and hours and hours by now, it doesn't make any difference to our next boot up. And I think that's kind of tragic. But also kind of hilarious in its own way.

On January 23rd, I did have the pleasure of watching Joe encounter a shiny Gastly while Joe, Tyler, and I watched the last episode of one of the greatest animes of all time, Ping Pong The Animation. It was their first time watching it, my fourth, and catching a shiny was just a beautiful moment to add to a beautiful experience of watching that anime again with them.